Cosmo*burp*
Posted on | August 7, 2008 at 10:17 pm | 1 Comment
There’s an interesting article in Next American City about the changing face of the suburbs. It’s particularly relevant to me as it uses my town Lakewood as an example of a new type of city coined a “Cosmoburb”, which means “wealthy suburbs that are also diverse and that increasingly contain non-traditional households”. The article says that in Lakewood, “singles and childless couples outnumber households with children”. I never really noticed it before, but I would have to say that my neighborhood really does not have a lot of kids around. There are a few pockets of traditional families here and there in the development, but there are also a heckuva lot of singles, couples without kids, and older people whose grown kids have left the nest. I’m not sure about diversity – there aren’t a lot of minorities around here, although there are certainly more than there used to be.
But one way in which my little corner of the city will never be cosmoburb-y is that there’s not a lot of “mixed-use” property around here. It’s all pretty much residential, with an occasional small strip mall. The “walkability” score for my address is a paltry 23 out of a 100 (”car dependent”). I long to be able to walk down to a corner cafe and sip a latte out on a patio, or to be able to do some produce shopping at a local corner market, or to walk to a neighborhood bar and stumble home drunk, but that’s never going to happen here.
The article mentions how the eventual FasTracks expansion of the metro light-rail line is going to create these mixed-use hubs around the Lakewood stations. But even the closest one of those is still very far away from me. Lakewood currently has at least one sorta mixed-use area, Belmar, which may or may not be a model for the kind of thing they’re going for around the stations. And who knows what’s eventually going to spring up around Solterra and the area between Alameda and Morrison Rd on C-470. That definitely looks to be targeted for mixed-use. I don’t see Belmar, Solterra, or their ilk being a model of diversity or “real” city life, and I can’t really see that happening to whatever springs up around those light-rail stations either. But one thing’s for sure: change is definitely coming and I can’t wait to see what it entails.
Oh, and the suburbs are becoming more city-like in at least one way: more homeless people begging on street corners.
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Driving in downtown Denver. It was bad enough today, pre-convention. I can’t wait to see what it’s going to be like in a few weeks…
Feeling Blu
Posted on | August 6, 2008 at 6:45 pm | Comments Off
Random Pet Peeves Of The Day that may eventually gel into some kind of theme:
- NetFlix is talking about charging extra for HiDef movies. Though I suppose it’s inevitable, I’m not happy about it. I came really close to canceling my NetFlix subscription awhile back because I wasn’t watching DVDs fast enough and so was losing money on the monthly subscription. What convinced me to stay with them was the fact they carried Blu-Ray discs at no extra cost. I knew I was going to be getting a PS3, with its built-in BR player, and I also knew that I was not going to go hog-wild crazy buying discs this time like I did with DVDs. I was going to concentrate on renting, and NetFlix made that easy. If you add a movie to your queue and say you have a Blu-ray player, then it sends you the BR edition of the movie if there is one, the DVD version otherwise. No muss or fuss, no decisions to make. I did end up getting a PS3 and sticking with NetFlix, and that’s worked out well. What we’ll usually do is get the movie from the library if it’s on DVD only, and rent from NetFlix if it’s available on Blu-ray or if the library hold list is too long. I’ve been a very good boy and have only bought a few BR discs – ones I know I will watch more than once or twice. If NetFlix is going to raise the price for BR discs, I’ll probably just complain but stick with them. The library doesn’t carry BR discs (yet), so I suppose I don’t have much choice. I certainly don’t want to start purchasing a lot of discs again. I don’t got the money or the room. Someday they may not even carry DVDs at all, though I’m sure that’s a long way off. Blu-ray is not going to replace DVD any time soon. But when it does happen, they’ll probably raise the price on DVDs, since those will be “rare”.
- I saw a commercial that says Comcast is giving away Nintendo Wii’s to new customers who sign up for their “Triple Play” deal. Tempting, but not even that can get me to sign up with The Devil. I’m happy enough for now with my DSL for Internet and my Dish Network for TV. What amazes me is that Wii’s are still pretty hard to come by, aren’t they? Nintendo has a big problem keeping up with demand in the US. And yet they’ve allocated some huge number of them to Comcast to give away in a promotion? Feh. That sucks.
- Spellchecker agendas. I was sending an e-mail to my co-workers the other day about Barack Obama. The spellchecker in Microsoft Outlook said that “Obama” was misspelled and it suggested an alternative. Can you guess what that alternative was? Hint: Microsoft is a tool of the right wing. I guess this explains the frequent faux pas on Fox News – they must use Microsoft products for spellchecking in their crawls and such.
- Bird poop. Forgot to mention that after the reunion dinner on Saturday night, we got to my car in the hotel parking lot to find the front of it covered in mounds of thick bird dung. I actually didn’t see how bad it was until the next morning. I was parked under a tree, so maybe there was a nest of very big birds up there. It looked like I had driven the car into a pile of manure. Took me awhile to clean it all of. That’s never happened to me before.
- Cars that decide to take control when they think you’re in danger. That’s just all kinds of wrong. How am I going to weave in and out of traffic on a busy highway if the car keeps putting the kibosh on it? I have enough trouble just getting the car to accelerate properly when I’m making a mad dash left or right turn into traffic. I don’t need artificial governors on my aggressive driving.
Okay, I guess there’s no theme after all.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 63°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “(Nadia Opening) Blue Water” (Shiroh Sagisu)
- “Greenland” (The Kingsbury Manx)
- “I Take Bribes” (Close Lobsters)
- “That’s What She Said” (The Greenberry Woods)
- “Blue Side” (Rooney)
- “Mondo Sinistro” (Al Stewart)
- “Yourself” (Manic Street Preachers)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “immature passive-aggressive sex fantasy responsibility therapist”.
The Deep Cuts Are The Firstest
Posted on | August 5, 2008 at 6:05 pm | 3 Comments
Forgive me if I’m treading on already-covered ground here, but this is something I’ve only just heard about, and it really intrigues me.
Paul Westerberg, a notoriously Internet/computer-shy musician, has released a new album that is only available as a single file MP3 download. It’s bizarrely called 49:00, even though it’s 44 minutes long. It apparently has multiple songs, some cross-fading into others, but there’s no way to purchase or listen to the songs separately. There aren’t even any song titles. But since the whole album costs 49 cents at Amazon (or it would if it were actually for sale – they seem to be having problems right now), I can see a lot of people taking the plunge anyway. Even those of us who haven’t really been into Westerberg for a long time may check it out. The fact that some critics are praising it as the ye old “return to form” is an additional inducement.
At first, the concept seemed crazy to me. But then the more I let it sit in my mind, the more I began to think “What a brilliant idea”. It seems to me like Westerberg is making a statement about the loss of the album format, about our short attention span culture, and about how the iPod Age has shifted the decision-making focus of the listening experience from creator to listener. There’s probably a whole bunch of other lessons he’s trying to impart as well. He’s actually forcing you to listen to all the songs together as a whole, as a single cohesive project – what a concept! And to release it that way digitally instead of on vinyl is subversive as hell. And for only 49 cents!
I’m one of those people who still stubbornly listens to music albums rather than songs, aside from my random song listening when jogging. I don’t even skip over the lesser songs. It drives me crazy when people play/rip only the hits off a disc. I know this is out of fashion, but I prefer the deeper listening experience it affords. But music is more than just background to me. I feel more connected with the artist that way, and I usually appreciate all the songs (even the hits) better when heard in context. (Although, truth to tell, some songs do sound better out of context and untethered from companion pieces. Which is why I look those random jogging playlists.) I have a feeling Westerberg is a kindred spirit there.
Of course, enterprising souls will edit the file into individual songs and just listen to the tunes they want to hear. But that in itself is a lesson – he’s forcing you to jump through hoops to listen to the album the way you want to listen to it, even if that only involves downloading the edits others have made. You must work to listen to the music! It is not a passive experience!
So it all really does make me want to listen to it, the way that Westerberg intended. Now if I could only actually download the damn thing!
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 64°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “It’s Okay, Maybe” (Anton Barbeau)
- “Everybody Come Down” (The Delgados)
- “Love Is Coming Through The Door” (Stew)
- “Haunted Town” (Chris Mars)
- “Centipede” (Veruca Salt)
- “You Held The World In Your Arms” (Idlewild)
- “Stop Your Crying” (Sleeper)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “my eyesight got alot worse within 1 year after wearing bifocals”.
Black Mountain
Posted on | August 4, 2008 at 10:58 pm | 4 Comments
Some days I wonder if I’m going to have anything to write about. This was going to be one of those days, but then it all changed around 1pm. Some days I wish I didn’t have anything to write about…
Green Mountain, the foothill that my neighborhood is named after, suffered a scary, fast-moving grass fire today. As of this writing, the fire is contained, and it miraculously didn’t damage any structures or hurt anyone. This is mostly due to the efforts of the heroic local firefighters, who went to great lengths to keep the fire from jumping to any homes. The high, ever-shifting winds and the hot, dry weather hindered their efforts greatly, but somehow they managed. The videos and pictures are amazing – you can seen the blackened grass go right up to the yards or fences of homes, leaving the homes themselves untouched. (Check out this slideshow.) Thanks, West Metro Fire!
I don’t think my home was ever in much danger from the fire, as I live south of the mountain and most of the fire was on the east and north sides. But there were some pretty big, expensive houses up there to the north that narrowly escaped. And if the wind had kept up, and suddenly shifted to the south, who knows what could’ve happened? If the fire jumped across Alameda and attacked the homes there, I would’ve really gotten worried. But luckily I didn’t have to start packing up the car with my valuables.
I’ve created a Flickr set with a few photos I snapped of the smoke from the fire as seen from different locales as I was driving home, and from my back deck. I wish I had gotten some decent pix of the blackened mountain or the fire itself, both of which I saw on that drive home. But then again, I’m glad I wasn’t close enough to get pictures of the fire!
Green Mountain does experience fires every once in awhile, but I’m pretty sure this is the largest, fastest-moving one since I’ve lived in the area (some 38 years). It’s been so hot and dry around here this summer that this kind of thing was almost inevitable. It appeared to have been started by a lightning strike. Too bad that lightning wasn’t accompanied by rain! Although it did rain some in the later afternoon, which helped firefighting efforts a bit. The thing is, I know the mountain will recover from this pretty fast and the vegetation will come back (assuming we don’t have a couple of years of drought like earlier this decade). They sometimes do controlled burns of the vegetation around here anyway, so I just have to think of this as getting all those controlled burns out of the way at once! Although it does look like not all of the mountain was scorched – the part of it visible from my neighborhood looks like pretty much unscathed. But I’ll know more tomorrow.
Now I know what it feels like to live in California.
Latre.
Ramblings 2008
Posted on | August 3, 2008 at 4:32 pm | 4 Comments
Movie Review Sunday!
I haven’t seen any movies this week.
I guess I should write about the 30th High School Reunion, which concluded last night with the dinner/dance. But there isn’t much to report. Even fewer people showed up for that than the mixer on Friday night. We had almost 500 people in our graduating class, and according to the “Memory Book”, over 300 of them still live in Colorado. I suspect around 100-200 still live in the same general area as the high school (I’m one of them), though I haven’t tallied that up. At the dinner last night, there were probably less than 75-100 people, not counting the spouses/partners. And many of them came in from out of state! Where were all the local people? Okay, I’m sure some of them had other commitments (like 80th birthday parties for the mother-in-law) and some just didn’t want to pay (~$100 per person). And I’m sure there were a lot of people who just had no interest at all in reliving those high school days. I’d probably be one of those if I hadn’t kept in contact with a lot of my friends from those days over the years. But it sure seems like if you’re local, you might as well pony up the money and check things out just for something to do. $100 is better than paying for plane/gas and hotel fare.
What I really don’t understand is the people who paid and didn’t show up. I do understand how some people who showed up the first night and embarrassed themselves might not have wanted to show up the second night, although it might’ve been a good chance to make amends and show you’re not quite as crazy when sober. But I’m pretty sure, as verified by name tags that were never picked up, that there were people who paid and didn’t show up on either night. More people than can be explained by emergency conflicts.
I was disappointed that a lot of people I was really hoping to see were no-shows, though I am glad I got to spend some time with good friends that I don’t see much of these days, including Vic, who flew in from Texas just for the reunion. It was worth it just to spend some time with him. But there were so, so many people that I wanted to see who didn’t show. I suppose I could’ve done more mingling with the people whom I didn’t mingle with in high school, but most of them were busy mingling with their own crowds. Yes, those divisions still stand 30 years later, although I think our high school was maybe a tad less cliquish at the time than some.
As always, it’s interesting seeing how people have changed, appearance-wise. Although at this age, most of the guys start looking way too much like each other. There will always be the people who age better than others, including the ones who look much younger than their age and are there to flaunt it.
There was pretty much zero dancing going on, and the DJ looked bored/disgusted. This was the first reunion that my girlfriend has attended, and she was underwhelmed. The 5th, 10th and 20th reunions were certainly better attended and more fun. I guess as people age, there just isn’t as much interest in renewing those old contacts. Pity.
But I’ll still probably go to the 40th.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “what happened to the queso crunchwrap?”.
Treasures, Memories, Banquets
Posted on | August 2, 2008 at 11:03 am | 4 Comments
The first part of my 30th High School Reunion was last night – the “mixer” at the local golf course. It was certainly interesting. Great to catch up with old friends, and to find out what people I barely remember (or don’t remember at all) are doing. There were some… behaviors on display that gave me a chuckle or two. And no, I’m probably not going to go into that here. Tonight is the big banquet at a local hotel, so we’ll see how that goes.
In the meantime, I have some questions. So many questions. For example, what does this fortune, that I got from a cookie at Spicy Basil on Tuesday, mean?
I know that other bloggers have tried figuring this one out (Google “ending a banquet”), but none of the explanations really satisfy me. Personally, I’m not into long banquets and don’t know what’s wrong with ending them.
I did a lot of treasuring of good memories last night, although a lot of bad memories surfaced as well.
And this is from today’s Free Range comic in the combined Rocky Mountain News/Denver Post:
Does this mean what I think it means? Is it saying that Mr and Mrs Santa are too overweight to have sex and reproduce? Their… ummm… parts can’t interact properly? That is just so wrong on so many different levels. Santa’s immortal, so he doesn’t need offspring! Besides, he has all those elves…
Maybe Mr and Mrs Santa should think about ending their banquets sooner.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “iphone stopped working emergency”.
« newer entries — older entries »